July 12th, 2018

Look at this, already at S8, maybe I should have spaced these out a little more...

Today, for the second time, we branch away from Sam and Dean centric scenes, and instead look at what I think is one of Crowley's absolute best character scenes.

Season 8 - Sacrifice - Crowley begins to break down

Why I chose this:

This is another one of those SO MUCH POTENTIAL moments, which, are obviously a draw for me. I love the introduction and exploration of possibilities - I love when the show opens up new doors on characters that we thought we knew, or character journey's that we thought we could predict.

But, before we get into all that, I also just love this scene because, although Mark Sheppard is often typecast as the sort of sarcastic/clever villain type, sometimes the sarcastic/clever scenery-chewing villain type... he actually is a dynamic and GOOD actor, and I feel like this scene really gave him room to stretch into places that we hadn't seen before from this character. It's a monologue performed flawlessly. And of course, Jared's reactions are perfectly played as well - that "What?" after Crowley's entire speech just KILLED me when the show aired. It was such a great way to relieve this really tense moment, where you start seeing Crowley's walls come down - you start seeing that maybe it's possible for Crowley to be a human.

And this scene works even if you don't get the references, because Sam doesn't get the references either.

But yeah, this turn that Crowley is taking here, this door opening to other, more human, sides of his character - is just brilliant, and it's acted brilliantly. And again, the places you could go with this! Ultimately, of course, the show didn't go those places - or they did, but too weakly and ineffectually to be of interest - but I think S8 was really one of the last times that Crowley's character was written well, and I really love this scene with him. I think both Mark and Jared were doing some of their best work in this episode in general, and it was lovely to see them play off each other in this scene especially.

Now, if I were writing this show, I would have continued this journey into S9, instead of reverting him, or making him pathetic and then reverting him, as they did. But that's me - the question Crowley asks later in this episode, which amounts to basically "how would I even begin to find forgiveness" is a fantastic one, and it would have been amazing to explore. Alas, alas, Carver wasn't big on character-driven plots, so we never got to... but this scene is the door opening on the possibility of doing so, and for that, I love it.